Crawling for Fitness

3 Best Crawling Exercises for Every Fitness Level

Motion

Crawling exercises can be rehabilitative, restorative or performance-enhancing, which is pretty cool.  

I say again, crawling on the floor, without any equipment, like a baby, can serve to heal and make you stronger.  

Wild.  

Crawling exercises deliver a plethora of benefits, including:

  • Improving reflexive strength
  • Brain stimulation (activate and stimulate)
  • Integrating: 
    • Vestibular system (balance system)
    • Proprioceptive system (self awareness in space system)
    • Visual system 
  • Connects shoulders and hips using contra-lateral movement (opposite limb movement)
  • Central nervous system reset (lower stress, recovery, etc)
  • Great carry over to real world tasks
  • Interesting, fun, challenging, a breath of fresh air

Obviously, I’m a fan of crawling during workouts and I think you’ll find a ton of value in it too.  

Plus, it’s interesting, fun, challenging.  

Bear Walk, Forward/Backward Crawl, Lizard Crawl

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This article was created to share 3 of the best crawling exercises for any fitness level:

1) Bear Walk

2) Forward/Backward Crawl

3) Lizard Crawl 

As you scroll through each of these exercises, take notice of the change in body position during each exercise.   

In particular, the shoulders/chest/hips in relation to the floor.

Body position changes a lot with these exercises. 

Bear Walk

The Bear Walk is a sem-inverted position that will challenge hand and foot coordination, hip flexibility, and shoulder strength. 

During the Bear Walk, your body is working to control twisting and bending forces from your arms and legs.  

Practiced regularly, bear walks can improve rotator cuff, scapular and spinal strength, along with positively impacting hamstring and calf flexibility.

Notice, this variation of the Bear Walk involves keeping the hips high and the arm/knees straight.  

Wait, why is this referred to as a “walk” and not a “crawl”.  

No clue.  

Exercise names can be confusing.  

If I were to name it, I’d call it “Downward Walking Dog”.  

From a difficulty standpoint, Bear Walks are the most forgiving exercise to learn on this list.

Forward/Backward Crawl

Forward and backward crawling is awesome for challenging the arms/shoulders, core and hips.  

This crawling variation is excellent for improving reflexive strength.

My self-coaching cues for this exercise are simple… keep the spine parallel to the floor, avoid excessive movement through the torso while moving, quiet hand/foot contacts.

Another great cue is to “Imagine balancing a glass of water on your back. Don’t spill a drop”.

Better yet, place a shoe or a yoga block on your backside and balance that sucker for the duration of the crawl. That’ll keep you honest.

Or a wood dowel if you’re looking for insane honesty with this crawl.

As with any crawling pattern, move slow for greater benefit. 

Slow movement requires more fine motor skill and the time under tension will creep up on you.  

Animal Flow 2.0 refers to this pattern as “Beast”, and is where I first learned my technique cues.

Lizard Crawl

The lizard crawl is a low-to-ground locomotion pattern that seriously challenge scapular mobility and stabilization, core control and hip mobility.  

Lizard Crawl is a SUPER challenging patterns for the muscles. It takes your breath away when you’re first adapting to the demands.

Notice the how low my shoulders, torso and hips stay in relation to the ground.  

I’m hovering 1-2 inches above the floor as I move forward.  

Staying low makes this exercise extremely demanding for the muscles since you’re in a disadvantaged position. 

First timers to lizard crawling will feel this in the days after.  You’ll be sore. 

This pattern is more similar to true resistance training compared to the Bear Walk and Forward/Backward Crawl described above.  

Over the years I’ve substituted the lizard crawl in place of push-ups and other pressing exercises in workouts.

12 to 15 feet is all you will need to get a great stimulus.  Practice each work set with focus, soft hand and foot contacts, moving the limbs with control.  

Be sure to rest plenty in between effort, as this crawling pattern is more like resistance training.

Movement20XX (Vahva Fitness) does an excellent job describing lead-in exercises to the Bear Walk and the Lizard Crawl, leading up to mastery.  The progressive design of Movement20XX program was a real draw for me.  

“How to organize crawling in workouts?”

You cannot screw this up. Seriously. There is no right or wrong way to practice crawling in a workout.

If you’re a beginner, I would suggest practicing each of these crawling patterns while you are fresh.

Either as part of the warm-up or just after the warm-up, but get your crawling in before any resistance training or higher intensity exercise.

Practicing new exercises is best done FRESH, not fatigued.  You can test yourself while under fatigue down the road.  

Once you’re at the intermediate or advanced stage, you can get a little bit more creative with where you place crawling exercises in the workout.  

Personally, I like to use crawling as an element of movement sequences, long duration movement flow, or as part of a conditioning circuit. 

Try this simple combination:

Because crawling is bodyweight-based, it pairs up extremely well with equipment such as kettlebells and barbell work.

Crawling for Time or Distance

Each of these crawls can be performed for a set distance or time. 

I’ve tried both options, and they both work really well.

For distance, 15-20 feet of slow tempo, technique focused crawling is plenty for a beginner.  

I’m talking about a single set of 15-20 feet, then taking rest.  Usually, rest periods should last 1.5-2x the time spent crawling.  

Personally, I like to set a timer and crawl until it sounds.  This way I can stay focused on my movement, instead of speculating how far I’ve crawled.  

For a beginner, 3-5 sets of 30-40 seconds of continuous crawling is enough time to elicit a great training effect.

Intermediate/advanced trainees will likely need to increase the time and play around with slowing down the tempo, toying with other variations, etc.

Crawl for 5 minutes straight. 🤷‍♂️

New to ground based movement exercises?

Start adding ground based movements to your workouts, immediately.  

Don’t wait.  

Most folks simply aren’t used to doing movements like these on a regular basis. 

In fact, crawling and other ground-based movements are a rarity in most workout routines.

To improve your coordination, mechanics and skill with anyone of these crawling patterns, it’s often a matter of practice and consistency.

Benefits of Crawling for Adults

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You found this article because you’re curious about the benefits of crawling.

Good for you!… because crawling (and ground-based movement in general) is one of the most underutilized methods in fitness. And abused.

Abused? Huh? Yes, abused.

Lots of fitness professionals are infatuated with high-intensity approaches to EVERYTHING.

Rushing bear crawls for time has its place, but it lacks the true benefits earned from slowing down a crawl pattern to build movement coordination and build skill.

Crawling is not just for babies. Adults can get pretty significant benefits from practicing crawling patterns on a regular basis.

How to progress crawling patterns beyond the basics is lesser-known, and can completely change your outlook on the activity.

I’ll talk a little more about moving beyond the basics of this article further down.  

Notable benefits of crawling for adults:

  • Neural system development (brain-body connection to be able to do more stuff)
  • Improvement in coordination, learning, and behavior
  • Strengthen the shoulder complex
  • Increase proprioceptive feedback, hand strength, and dexterity
  • Core developer
  • Mobility training for the joints like hips and shoulders
  • Excellent transfer from the gym into real-world tasks and activities

A large majority of adults de-evolve with age. 

This is a sad reality.

When we are young, we move frequently. Somewhere along the way, usually, after college ends and careers start, daily movement nose dives.

Non-exercise activity drops, which is concerning because of the undeniable data being published related to daily step count and the relationship to all-cause mortality.

Movement, and our ability to move well, is a use it or lose it situation.  Wolff’s Law at it’s finest. Either keep moving or the ability to move gradually declines.  

So, before you listen to that fitness pro barking out orders to plow through a 60-minute high-intensity crawling workout, please consider taking a more sensible approach.  

Haven’t worked out consistently for a while? Guess what… biologically you’re different now.

Work back into slow, in manageable doses, with adequate rest and recovery separating work sets and workouts throughout the week.

Now, the positive news is that you can get back into fitness, movement, and more specific to this article, CRAWLING, right now. 

Below are some AMAZING introductory drills that’ll reveal how challenging bodyweight, the floor, and a few positional shifts can be.  

[FYI:  Consistency with physical practice is HUGE, one of the deciding factors if you achieve goals.  Not just with exercise, but with anything.  You must continue to practice these exercises to earn the benefits.  Fitness is not an instant gratification game… it’s the opposite.  People who continually show up and put in the work, get the reward. Play the LONG GAME]

If you’re already an avid lifter or engaged in some form of exercise most days of the week, great!  You’ll get plenty of benefit from these drills, and likely find them to be challenging beyond what you anticipated.

Here. We. Go.

Clear a small space.  You don’t need much.  A 6ft x 6ft space free of furniture and other obstructions will work.   

Crawling in small spaces gets the green light from me. You can get a ton of work done inside of an imperfect space.

Reach your arms out, spin around one time. Did you touch anything? No? You’re good… let’s get to work.

Start with Non-Moving Holds

Non-moving, or static, variations are a logical place to acclimate to the demands of crawling.  

The purpose of these drills is to get a feel for what a good body position feels like.  Take a mental note of what you’re feeling in the arms, shoulders, chest, core, and lower body.  Be in the moment, not somewhere else.  

Pro-tip:  Once you’ve locked in body position, imagine balancing a glass of water on your back.  Don’t spill a drop.  Or, place a shoe or other small object on your back for immediate feedback.  

Remain still, stable, and avoid jostling as much as possible!

To start, practice holding these two positions for 3 sets of 30-40 seconds:

Limit the Base of Support from 4-Points to 3-Points

Ok, now, let’s play around with the impact of limiting the base of support does to these exercises.  

Perform 3 sets of 8 shoulder taps (each arm):

During each shoulder tap, your body is doing it’s best to react and re-stabilize itself given the change of floor contacts.  The loaded arm takes on the weight of the upper body, working overdrive.  

Contralateral Lift Offs

Next, let’s play around with limiting the base of support from 3-points, down to 2-points of contact.  

This next series of drills are TOUGH.  

You’re going to lift the opposite arm and leg AT THE SAME TIME and hold that position for 10-15 seconds:

If you want, speed up the tempo.  Pause and hold the 2-point position for 2-3 seconds before moving to the other side.  Keep alternating for time (60 seconds) or for reps (12-15 reps).

Crawl

Set a timer and work each crawling pattern for 3 sets of 30-60 seconds PER EXERCISE.

Move slow, focused, and with control.  

Keep your mind’s eye on body position and make hand/foot contacts quiet.  Soft and quiet floor interactions are closely associated with control. 

Crawling has been an important part of my workouts for a long time.  It’s become an essential component of my warm-ups, workouts, and conditioning circuits.  

If you find any of the drills above to be overwhelming, you’re not alone.  To be honest, even short duration basic variations like the forward/backward crawl was soul-crushing for me in the beginning. 

Anything new generally is.  Your body doesn’t know how to be efficient yet.  Soreness will likely follow in the days ahead.

But, adaptation is a beautiful thing.  I made gradual progress from non-moving variations, to a limited base of support hold and into basic crawling patterns and beyond.  

Today, I’ll engage in more aggressive crawl workouts that last anywhere from 5, 10, 15 minutes without breaks.  But that didn’t happen overnight.  

What’s cool about crawling is that it can be progressed far beyond the basics described in this article.  

The lizard crawl is a prime example of an advanced, low position crawling pattern that’ll put your strength to the test.  A 15-foot lizard crawl can feel like 50 feet.  

Leveraging the principle of progressive loading and add weight to crawling exercises to further challenge your strength and coordination.  Again, this doesn’t happen overnight, but it’ll give you a glimpse into where you can take this stuff. 

Sometimes my workouts are purely ground-based movement sessions jam-packed with crawling and other unique movements. 

Benefits and results?  

Here’s what I get out of crawling work.  

1.  Skill transfer.  Transitioning from a standing position or walking to the floor is second nature now.  I don’t blink. The transition work is seamless. It’s amazing how often I use crawling in real-world situations with my kids, to complete a task or while in the woods hunting.  

2.  Lean muscle.  Nutrition is king for body composition, but the added time under tension crawling definitely added some muscle and definition to my frame.  I don’t chase aesthetics, but it’s a nice added bonus.  

3.  Gains in other lifts.  Pushing, squatting, deadlift, etc… all felt more organized.  Weight increased, volume increased (reps/sets per workout) and progress was made.  

4.  Fun.  If you’re stuck in a workout rut, it’s time to inject something different into the mix.  Doing the same thing over and over will drive you insane, and can fizzle out your interest in exercise.  Mix in some crawling, it’s both challenging and refreshing.  

Crawling is only the tip of the iceberg. There’s SO MUCH more to explore inside of the ground-based movement category.

Ground-based training is a fantastic supplement to traditional resistance training and mobility work.  

Want to go further down the rabbit hole?

If you want to dive into more ground-based work, I don’t blame you and quite frankly I highly recommend you continue to learn about this stuff.

Check out Animal Flow or Movement20XX.

These are the premier ground-based movement training systems. Both are comprehensive platforms with subtle differences in approach.

Animal Flow integrates different training methodologies: gymnastics, break dancing, Yoga, calisthenics, Capoeria, and various crawling and locomotion variations into movement sequences and flow.

Movement 20XX you to use this article as a stepping to investigate comprehensive training programs like Animal Flow and Vahva Fitness Movement20XX.

I’ve shared these programs with thousands of people and the feedback has been tremendous.

Which program is the best? Tough question to answer, both are great.

Lately, I’ve been guiding people to Movement20XX. Movement20XX creator, Eero Westerberg, shares a similar approach to training as me. Naturally, my compass points toward the Movement20XX curriculum.

At the end of the day, both programs deliver amazing content that’s clearly articulated. Skill level doesn’t matter.

Beginners will get the coaching they need, and so will advanced movers who are seeking mastery and next-level gains.